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Lesson Info

Storytelling Methods

So the next thing now that we know what we want to document one of the things we talked about just a second ago was getting other people to participate and there's my two crazy girls and I love getting my kids perspective in our scrapbooks but it doesn't always go as mom might planet in fact when I first started scrapbooking I guess it was probably about four five years in because my son was playing t ball and my husband was the coach and I thought, ok, well I'm going to document their first little league season I'm gonna make a mini album which we're gonna be talking about tomorrow if you're not familiar with it it's just a smaller scrapbook it's typically dedicated to a single topic or subject and so it's smaller than then one of these big the more more expanded albums and I did a whole album about a little mini album about their season and I took a picture of each of the players my husband was the coach so I said just go through and and write and tell me about each each player and t...

ell me about the season on a game in the book thinking it was so simple he had to do this attempt that is like ok mason sixteen now so that was eleven years ago and they still haven't done it it was just too much for him I thought it was simple but for him is a non scrapbook er non writer for him to sit down and do that was just too overwhelming for him so I still wish he would do that and maybe I'll just have to break it up into smaller pieces or something but I do have some suggestions on how you can avoid that sort of situation yourself number one is to set your own expectations that really scrapbooking is your hobby sometimes there's other people in your family who appreciate it or who occasionally part taken it with you like angela you were saying you and your mom used to do this together sometimes my daughters will scrapbook with me but really I'm the big scrapbook or in the family but just because I consider myself our family historian and I take that on willingly as my role in our family that doesn't mean that I have to be responsible for adding that the story on every the single page that I really can bring them in and you know it makes it more fun for them I think when they look at the scrapbooks later but I also shouldn't expect that they're going to do it as willingly as I would and I think that's a critical element to is just that realize that it's your hobby it is something that hopefully they will appreciate but it's not really realistic necessarily to expect them to be like oh yeah let me grab my penn and let's get right to work here. It's it can be a little bit a little bit up to be a little strategic about it sometime. So that was my first suggestion. Is that that whole idea of setting your own expectations so you won't be disappointed another way I like todo incorporate other people's voices is filling in the blanks, so I give them a some, maybe something I put it out on the computer or I handwriting and I or I ask them questions, and I say, ok, just tell me on the vacation, what was a favorite thing that we did? What was your least favorite thing? What was the favorite restaurant we visited? What was something that surprised you? What was something that was boring for you? It could be anything, and I might do that for each family member and then put that on a page or in, you know, sections of my album as a way to document our vacation, but not just from my perspective. If it's a family vacation, it makes sense that we should have family voices in there. So that's one way I've used in the past small cars, we've talked about those pocket scrapbooking cards like from simple stories, or many other companies make them, but they're on lee three by four typically sometimes you can get the ones that are four by six is well but start with the three by four wins and asked them to fill in that because when you give them a sheet of paper or a beautiful layout that you've created with one little spot that a lot of pressure because they don't want to wreck your layout either so if you give them something and they write it here that can be tough for them but if you give him a little card and they feel like ok, well if I screw up I'll just use a different card or and let them know that too that your handwriting fine don't worry about spelling just tell me a little bit about how this was for you then it becomes a lot less intimidating for them s o the small card is an approach that I take often and I've got some examples of these I'm gonna show in just a second you can also interview them like we talked about either for that fill in the blank kind of thing or on a more extended basis like ok so my daughter participates in synchronized skating and they won their championship so I might say ok, how did you feel before you went on the ice what were you guys talking about in the dressing room? How long did it take to get your hair ready which costume was your favorite? When so and so fell down? Were you nervous? All those kinds of things that as a mom, I might be thinking watching her, but I'm gonna pull them out of her and write them down myself, so she doesn't have to sit and write them, but I'm getting the answers to the questions I want her to answer, but she's not feel like she's got to come up with the questions on her own so he can even do that in an aural fashion, like we were just talking about the transcribe it later, or where it's just a conversation so she's not feeling like you're writing down every word, she says. It's more natural also texts and emails. We talked about that a little bit and how easy it is and how great it is because their perspective is already built in, and then other other conversations you have khun transcribe them, write down notes later, record them whatever things like that, any other ideas that you guys might have t get people talking or tio incorporate their perspectives other than withholding coffee, which I love a love that idea, do these sound doable? That sound like something your families and friends might be ableto if you approached it this way that you feel confident that they might some of my family members would be more willing than others even with this but yeah for my father's funeral we did a scrapbook of him and I had each of my siblings take a small card and write their favorite dads on then put it in the truck that's great, but I haven't any of their handwriting with a picture of them in my dad so that is that I love the handwriting and also that you gave them the card versus like layout done because I found if I give them a completed layout they really get stressed out they feel like I'm gonna mess it up and my one brother goes can I type this? I don't know good for you no coffee for you angela do you think your family would would be an up for this? I've tried and they're not yeah, but I can't I can trick my kids into the text thing because right cassell and cake with dad and you know sometimes when I just you know, just kind of see where their heads that are right on a lot of times personality comes out text right? Totally yeah, I know that I've yeah yes, but I think it's really a matter of finding out what they're going to do anyway and then just kind of co opt so I I was talking earlier about the home school and callie had made a little schedule she actually did the story writing for that page, but she didn't know it because then and then the page with kinsey with her cartoon I didn't tell her make a cartoon for this page I took a cartoon she'd already created so little notes the I love you moms or I hate you moms I get some of those everyone so we're small never right where's mom in the world or just little notes I went over to so and so's house and it's all spelled wrong or whatever it might be just little things that you notice as parts of their personalities are fun to incorporate in the pages a swell doesn't have to be text necessarily could be the cartoons or drawings or things like that too. So here is the page that I created I thought I had the original to it but I do there is also this too this is the before and after. So this is one of callie's first day of synchronized skating and it's like synchronized swimming but it's on ice skates so like ice capades or something like that and that's heard sport of choice and so this was her first day of class when they were learning all the basics and I took the photos and I thought, you know what? I want her to write about this so here on the screen you can see the pain that's, where I didn't follow my own advice in terms of handing she's very willing to write on the page, he has no problem, but I just let left a little space for her and asked her just right two sentences about your first day of skating and then this one that I'm showing here on the table is the result and it's so cute with her spelling and everything. When I first started synchro, I felt so excited that one more step I'll be on the many shooting stars, which is the competition team. When I connected shoulders, when we first started, I felt like I was on the ice ready to perform with the many shooting stars is this it's executed her so it's, just really sweet and and she wrote it in pencil. I didn't have any problem with that. I wanted her to do with what she was comfortable with, but it means so much more to me that she told the story in her writing versus me telling it and then editing her writing or stanley or anything like that, and I just I really enjoy the pages the result? Another one is this one I called, she said, she said, because it's about kinsey and me, but basically we just both answered the same questions I made a list of what our favorite movie was, what the our favorite friend, favorite color favorite tv show just things like that, and I printed out one version for her one version for me, and we each filled them out, and we compared them, and it was cute, because some of the things we're very similar, I learned some things about her that I didn't know before, and she was very willing to do that is a teenage girl. Teenage girls love filling out quizzes, you know which animal are you? Which cartoon character are you? They love that stuff. So take advantage of that on dh. That was a fun page. Two doas well, here's one with the pocket cards, these air, some pocket. Karzai was actually on the simple stories, blawg. And they had sent me some product. Tio create a lay out with, and I did a summer goals layout. And so I had each person in the family right down on this little card. What a couple of goals that they had for the summer. One or two goals that could be, you know, read five books or finished my, you know, finish my scrapple, ge album or whatever it might be a visit, three new baseball parks, it could could have been anything, but I had them put that down, and then I added in later, some photos of what we did during our summer and how we work towards those goals, so that was pretty fun to do two and again, just a little snippet sounds like one of those one hundred forty characters ones could have just been lose ten pounds. I think that was probably mine right on and makes it makes it find to see where everybody's heads are in their own handwriting. We had a fun experience with a woman who takes part in our community and our our layout a day challenge that I was talking about earlier with the the scrapbooking, our path, their past perfect and windy synthes in she actually posted it on our message board for the challenge, and I said, I've got to share this with the creative life audience because it was just so as I mentioned it, the whole lite theme for the month of scrapbooking older stories, so maybe from our childhoods, but a time before, like adulthood basically could be college or but earlier on in our lives. And when he said that each day she's been calling her mom tio talk to her about the prompt her mom recently had a stroke and has some difficulties, both recalling and also expressing herself. But every day when he's been calling her and she says everything I've been calling my mom every day and she has been so excited about this and it's given her a real spark so the idea that this may also be a gift to the other people in your life asking for their perspective and sharing their stories and views on things and it just it just struck me that that I'm so thankful that wendy's getting those stories now because you know, her mom has experienced a stroke but she's still able to communicate and has brought a lot of excitement enjoy to them as well. So what's going on the chat nothing right way we've got so many different topics in here way have a lot of questions people are helping each other out answer each other's questions now here's something that just came up and this question comes from my joy ann and why and they say, do you make separate books for each child and then make copies you know, for family things I mean, because I think that sometimes with the children here it's like, well, ok, all this is about one of the siblings say you have three kids who they want their own scrapbook we've got some people in the chat room kind of sharing their opinions on this yeah, I this's one of those times where I'll tell you what I do but it's really up to you I do know people who have multiple children who will scrap book this same exact page with the same exact products multiple times so each of their children will have the same page in their albums e I don't do that you know that's that's definitely a new approach that some people take because they want to make sure everybody's got the same thing I figure that just like with family photos that not everybody is gonna want every page and those who might maybe both both my daughters want the same page or something like that some day then weaken, scan it in and make copies or make a photo album of the entire book there's a photo book I mean a photo you know when you upload the images tio a site and they print out the photo book that it's really about the story again it's not about oh mom used this product on the page and I needed to look three d because that it's about this story so I figure I'm just going toe when I go my scrapbooks will be there and then whoever wants they can divvy it up any way they want and that's what our family is done with the photos and it turns out that just my sister and I want any of the photos to begin with and we're pretty clear on who wants what and this somebody wants copies of the same one we just make copies of it we've had a bit of discussion also in love ridiculous amount of discussion online in a great way, but also on the voice. So we have some people who are checking into the kid's facebook account making that I'm stealing what they said about the fight are my chain. I just would kill me, but there are people who say, is it like a scrap happy jin? Is it terrible that I'm really not bothered about having other people's voices in my scrapbooks on a couple of other people say they feel the same way? So, you know, I guess each person's story and their perspective and their take right now I'm going to be different, and I bet you can anticipate what I'm going to say it's, totally up to you. If you will enjoy this, having your scrapbooks be a reflection of your perspective than that is fantastic it's a lot less work than trying to get. We have the story from other people on the flipside. Other people really feel that that's an important element and it's just too personal preference, and it may change over time. It may change depending on the story you want to tell and it's all ok, so if you're good just having it from your perspective that's perfect if you want to incorporate other people than that's great, too, and I would use that as a threat. For my teenagers either you tell me sit down with me for five minutes or I'm gonna go on your facebook account and kathy this, uh no coffee for you? Uh, ok, great. All right, so the next section is that I wanted to talk about is some additional methods that we can use to capture stories. So now we've got all these ideas swirling around in our brains, and we might be a little bit overwhelmed with the idea we're going to sit down and write a page on each one or we talked about lists already and things like that, but I wanted to give you some other tools and strategies that for me have been very successful in allowing me to capture my stories quickly and thoroughly as well. And again, what you choose is going to depend on the story you're telling and whether you're using other people's perspectives. If you have a photo to accompany the story, all those things, but these are just tools to have in your scrap booking tool kit, just like your adhesive, you can pull out when you need it, and it makes it more fun when you mix things up too, and another fun thing that with these methods specifically that I'm talking about today, they can really serve as themes for your album so you could create multiple pages using the same method or you could create a whole album where you ask multiple people the same questions, maybe every birthday you ask the same ten questions and that's the birthday paid you do every year. What was a favorite president? You've got what's the best part about turning sixteen, seventeen, eight nine who's your best friend what's your favorite subject in school? Just those things that could change tomorrow and probably for kids will change tomorrow, but it's fun to document them now to see how they change over the course of a year. So lists we've already talked about you could make lists your shopping list can go in your scrapbook because that's going to change over time. The things you're buying today if you're buying wipes and diapers three years from now, you will tell me depends on who you are, you might still be buying them, but you might not that's going to change my family always last time because I always have a weird diet thing I'm going on like either it's going to be vegan or now I'm doing paleo and edited it, and that would be hilarious to have photos of like the shopping cart at each of these stages that that I've gone through these things no dairy, you know well, high fat, low fat, whatever it might be, it would be hilarious s o any kind of list that you might like to put together a list of places you want to go when you win before you die friends, you wantto connect with bucket list all those sorts of things they're so fun to add to our scrapbooks, and they usually pretty easy and usually pretty the easy for other people as well. What are the last five books you had to read for school or the last five books you've read? Or what tv show did you watch last night? It's just if they're easy to capture for yourself and for other people mad libs who remembers mad lives if you're not familiar with mad lives, they are games that their word sort of word fill in the blank word games that were very popular in popular when I was young and they've made a resurgence in recent years, and basically they're a story with certain words eliminated and all it says is the part of speech, so it might say person in room and I went to the place, we took a means of transportation, and it took a number of, you know? Days to get there something like that and the person who's answering the question doesn't know the rest of the sentence, so I'll just say, tracy, give me a verb and she'll say jumping or whatever it might be and also angela, give me a person, the room when she'll say chris and then you read off the story and it's like this nonsense story that kind of makes sense but is really silly at the end and kids really loved them in our family actually, we play them at dinner time to keep the kids from fighting so there's a little parenting tip for you, but you can do that with your story either seriously or in a silly manner. Where you right out all the journaling about your family vacation this summer? We went to the grand canyon and my favorite part was the you know, you fill it in and it took us it felt like forever in the car, and I wish we had more time to see the blank and then it becomes a game for them and it's, just a little approach to scrap again keeps it mixed up and engaging for everybody by the numbers is one of my absolute favorite approaches to take when I'm documenting snapshot of the here and now and that's why I love the time and date dot com or dating time, whatever that was because because I love the numbers and how they reflect so much about our lives, whether it's the number of texts I received or number of college catalogs we got in the mail that day or number of miles, we drove our number of times, so and so hit the other one or it just sometimes it keeps your saying, okay, there's, another tally, whatever it might be. Are we there yet? Number of times it was asked on the ride number of times we stopped a mcdonald, whatever it might be like a trip that could be really fun. It's just again, another way of getting at the story that doesn't require a lot of a lot of composition, shin if that makes sense, it can be really just a list of of these different numbers that you've tracked and the quotes, lyrics, poetry if somebody else has already said it, and they said it really well, then don't feel like you've got to say it again. There are poems or song lyrics that can just tug at your heart in it. You hear a song and it just transports you back, and if those lyrics are meaningful for you, use them on your scrapbook page, I've got examples of the page and here that I use lyrics, and that was the only journaling on the page. And that can work. You probably wouldn't want every page you ever did to be just lyrics, but that could be a cool album, no pun intended, terrific, many album or something like that or could be a line of poetry. I often use song lyrics for four titles of pages because it's a fun way to capture people and pull them into the story and oftentimes creates immediate recognition with the reader. So if they see a lyric, they recognize it and they already feel pulled into the page because they want to know what I'm going to say about it. So here are a few examples this is a no photo page and it's just fill in the blanks and was all about the last. The last book I read, the last email I sent, the last thing I ate the last time I cried the last phone call I made the last meal I cooked and this is a great one that you could dio on a regular basis once a month or once a year, like if you decided to do that every january first or something like that, that could be a fun, just snapshot of the on a yearly basis or again having your family, philip, each of them fill it out as well. Oftentimes the families there together on new year's eve and you think it ok we'll do the resolution thing but what if you did something like this as well could be a family activity that would be really fun probably for younger kids because the older kids went on new year's eve but you never know you can't go out till you fill it out so I really enjoys the enjoy these two even going back and looking at it now it really it really brings me back to that that time in place here's a by the numbers page time I got up texts I sent text I received I mean even now this was I can't remember what year this two thousand eleven I only sent seven texts there's something wrong email sent thirty two e mails received one hundred fifty two inches of snow outside time spent working diet cokes drunk it just just fun numbers and it's it's definitely a snap sort of what was going on in my life I like this one loads of laundry done zero loads of laundry waiting for and what time I went to bed is just kind of a day in the life sort of thing and then lists you've seen this layout before where I did the list of ways I embarrassed kinsey very useful and then uh lyrics on this one this was for scrapbook improv and the challenge was the title is wide open spaces and the journaling challenge was to use lyrics and so I used the dixie chicks song and it's talking about how we're moving to arizona and it's going to be a completely different experience and there's little caliphate there in the in the desert and it says it I didn't really need to add anything else and actually wrote it right on the photo pretty simple page came together quickly but it it tells a story and compare that to the new shoes page totally different took about the same amount of time yeah he's the sharpies sharpies for that yeah um here's quotes in this one it was for our layout a day challenge and the challenge was to take um to use quotes as your journaling and so I wanted to scrap book this picture about kinsey soccer team where they went into penalty kicks and she's the goalie and she had blocked the penalty click kicks in and they had won the game and so I went to a variety of different uh ads for adidas and nike and just took the words because they always have inspirational sayings like that just do it and took them off off the ads and it says everyone loses games if you change them right the future be the hammer or the nail limits exist only in the mind life is this as a sport make it count now you know and those air from probably five or six different ads. But they came together. Really? Thanks, it's. Almost like a poem and its summed up what was going on. It tells a story without any words for me. And it evokes a feeling in me that I immediately go back to that moment in time. That was fun. Any more comments online people chime in and with idea their thoughts way got some questions coming up earlier. Now we have people just kind of sharing mohr and more of their tip is that they use their technology is good and more people champion about using the voice that voice dictation on the mac. So that was a great, you know, that that was built into the mac, operating throughout this whole other train of thought about how people are going to start using that to their panic, you will know, I scrapped a conversation. All right, we have everybody quiting song. Lereah. Yeah, yes, that will be a hold on the workshop way. You tell me when I'll be there. Ok, how about here? Does this or any of these appealing to you? Have you used any of these in the past, or does one kind of think, oh, I could totally do that anything, I think I've used them all in the past they find that it's a different like a way to change up yeah album yeah yeah and sometimes you sit down do you think I don't really I don't know what to say I mean even though you know what the story is you can't find that route into this story and sometimes these can really help or just reading through quotes that if it's a wedding picture for example reading wedding or love quotes can give you an idea for that starting place for this story as well that works really well for me anything else? Okay, so the next section that the next topic I wanted to cover it is weirded generate ideas for your stories we talked before about getting them from texts and facebook and things like that but that leaves open a real wide wide arena and we had some questions earlier about she's where do I start? I've got thes heritage photos or I've got boxes of photos from when I was young I don't know really where to start with those so we're going to give you some more starting points for stories and and give you some ideas on how you know what might be a good topic for a scrapbook page and one of the questions I always suggest asking when we start with when we were scrambling from the story but we have photos to help us is asking what that story means to you so if you sit down and you again you have a photo you love why do you love it what is it that you see in the photo what is that story that you want to tell whether it's a picture of your family or you know I've got one here the girls all dressed up what does it mean and this when I look at it and I think oh my gosh they're having so much fun together and I hope they always connect like that that's just what comes immediately to mind so that might be a story I want to tell but I'm using the photo as a prompt rather than thinking ok I've got a scrapbook this photo so that's just a question what does this photo mean to me what's important about it and that's really what brings us into our stories what's important to you now what are the things you spend time on now whether it's reading or do uniter do you volunteer at habitat for humanity? Whatever is important to your life whether it's a tv show where it's important to you to go to zuma every week whatever whatever you're spending your time on that's obviously important to you so you might want to think about documenting those things is it important to them so again with your kids you know I might not care about the cabbage patch doll but my daughter may be your favorite toy she sleeps with it every night so if it's important to her, that might be something I want including my scrapbook page um either strong emotions attached if you look at a photo and you immediately have an emotional you attend an event or you see something in your life and it brings up that strong emotion that's that's a huge clue that this is something that's important to you so whether it's going to the refrigerator and seen if you know full of healthy food and you're proud of yourself because it's a change you've been wanting to make in your life and you really appreciate the fact that you've made this change that's something you could document or you go to your closet and you see you know you see all your work clothes that you don't wear anymore because you've changed jobs and you're really happy because you don't have to put on pantyhose or heels or whatever people wear pantyhose do they have to announce this we usedto have tio is not funny anyway if if you have an emotion with that that could be something that you want to document on a page of change that's occurred in your life that's worth scrapbooking and same with your kids or your loved ones the people who you work including your scrapbooks where there's strong emotion for them something they love whether it's a diary of a wimpy kid books or phineas and ferb wherever they're investing themselves, the things that you might want us document in your scrapbook again, there's going to be so many things in our life that we could these are just some clues to say ok, where do I start? So like what? Those heritage photos? I would start with the ones where you feel some emotion to them, either because you recognize the people in them or you remember the event or you remember something about it or somebody told you a story it's much easier to tell those stories in this start with a photo where you don't recognize anybody, you're gonna have to do some digging start with where the emotion is, and I tell up to people in my layout of day challenges all the time if I give you a prompt and it doesn't resonate with you, find one that does turning on skins q it a little bit, move it, change it into something that's going to bring up emotion you because life's too short to dio scrapbook pages that you feel in about go where your emotion is. Also, are you the on ly one? And who can tell that story? If you were the only one who experienced that, then he probably should tell the story, because if you don't tell it, like I said before, who will? So things that you've done choosing what college to go to we're choosing to make a big change in your life you're probably the only person who can tell that and that might be something your kids will want to hear it one day or somebody else there you know what a woman in the twentieth or twenty first century how she lived her life? I mean, those are things that historians now study from the eighteenth century the world of women were living it, so why not document and share our experience? Because it really does matter it really matters that we're here and we're making a mark even though we sometimes feel like all we're doing is the laundry and, you know, moving stuff, getting kids from point a to point b that's our life and we should really value that value the stories as a result, we talked earlier a little bit about how we keep track of those stories just keeping a running list again just find a method that works for you in next card a word document just a page in the back of your daily calendar where you just write down those stories anyway that's going to help you remember and that you're going to remember to go to to find those stories later so don't over organize yourself and I'm going to start a file for this in a file for that just have one central place and then always go there that's what works for me because I can get really granular and all alphabetize it by title of the story I want to tell and then and then I can't find anything or it takes too much time so make it easy on yourself and then also we talked about using the photos as a memory aid so when you look through your photos and you say ok, I've got this photo here callie on the first day of school what is it what do I see in this photo what do I remember about that day? What do I want to tell other people what do I want her to know what does it really mean to me? It's a cute picture of her but there's meaning there beside that so this is the year she decided she was to own up for a backpack she decided she wanted a messenger bag so I'm seeing that I'm seeing her little you know, the bright colors and how I love how vibrant she isn't she's not shy about fashion at all and that she's riding her scooter to school because it hasn't started snowing yet and just those air some of the things I might not include that all on the page but I might I might say ten things I remember about you first day of school two thousand thirteen and list those where I might decide to go with her fashion and find a couple other photos that demonstrate her crazy fashion sense and pull that in or I can even remember how I used to dress at the same age and if I have access to those photos I could bring those in first day of school in nineteen seventy eight first day of school two thousand thirteen and do a compare and contrast and that's really fun too but it's just spending time with the photo instead of just immediately starting scrap booking it so looking at it, what does it mean? You could write down some thoughts you can type in the computer again? Whatever works for you he could stick it on a yellow sticking out and put it on the back of the photo if you're not ready to scrap it right then but just finding a way to jot some of those thoughts down question this is an interesting one because I think to date we've looked at commemorating and celebrating and reinforcing great occasions this one is a little trickier and I know we have a guest also tomorrow you'll be covering some other topics so enjoy any has a question there was a difficult divorce that my children endured I took pictures of the good times but it seems like it's wrong to just journal scrapped the good times instead of the reality but if I told the real story they don't want to know here it so what direction would you give to someone in that situation? I think it starts with who that scrapbook is for. A lot of people will scrapbook tougher times as a way for themselves to take control of that. Teo, for instance, somebody who's going through treatment for breast cancer, I've seen people scrapbook that process because it makes them feel like they have control over a process that seems totally overwhelming and outside their control. So that's a personal thing that they're doing for themselves, and here and now, maybe somebody else will will that will be shared with somebody for the future. So is that is this for her herself to document her story? Or is it something she's doing as a legacy for her kids? And she may have some pages that fit in one category and not the other it's okay, not to scrapbook things, too. Just because something happened doesn't mean you have to scrap book it. There may become a time in a place two years from now, three years from now, five years from now, when you decided, you know, when it's time to talk about this, my kids are prepared for it, they're ready for it, you can also scrapbook things and just not share it with people have your own album in your room, that's your thing that other people are not invited to look at so again, it's really having that permission that you don't have to scrap book your whole life, you don't have to put every page you create online in a gallery, you can keep things private, it's totally okay, it's actually good to do that thing these days, we feel like everything needed to be out there, we can hold things back for ourselves. We could also, I might suggest that she invites her kids to help her create that album with her, and if there are pages that she feels some trouble creating, maybe they do it with their dad because that's their reality. But again, is she scrapbooking for them? Or is she scrap looking for herself and she helping them tell their story? Or she telling her story? Because there's a difference there we can get those confused, especially with their kids, and especially as a mom that there's a lot of blending mayor, but just make a distinction. Sometimes I'm telling my story, sometimes I'm telling theirs I may hold off on writing parts of my story because you know, they're not ready to hear that they're too young, but I feel value in telling that story, and I'll tell it and later time also, circumstances changed to I scrapped through to miss carriages and then I didn't end up doing a page about how well obviously since we had two miscarriages we're never going to have any other babies and then and then I got pregnant about six months later and have that baby now and looking back at those pages you know you can feel the pain and you can feel what I was going through but it so far removed now that if I tried to go back and scrap of that time now like I don't even feel that anymore it doesn't even feel like the same person so it's kind of important to get even the hard stuff down in the moment if you can yeah yeah that's part of your story yeah, we have a guest tomorrow jennifer gallagher who is going to be coming in via skype for a short session on talking, talking specifically about scrapbooking harder subjects and some ways that she's found to do that authentically that has been empowering for her and everybody's everybody's experience is going to be different some people will look at that say I could never scrapbook that I just want to scrap book the happy stuff that's totally okay again we're not going to scrap book every story, so if you choose to just focus on certain things maybe it's just baseball season that's I'm just scrapbook baseball that's okay there are other stories that are not being told but none of us is ever going to tell all of our stories, so we're all editing at some level just by the virtue of the fact that we have limited time. So it's just choosing what feels right to you to scrapbook. All right, so when you look at the photos, sometimes it might be a little bit tougher to decide what it is about the the story that's grabbing you. And sometimes it might just be the look in someone's eyes and there's calendar a little duck hat and I just love, you know, look at the shiny little eyes, it just makes me happy. But then I could say, what is it about that and here's a page? Not that I did about calee, but that I did about that look and it's called, you've got that? Look, I said, how when kinzie gets that look, I know she's up to something something's going on. So you talk about what does that look mean? What are you seeing in their eyes when you when they get that look or or what do you think they're thinking? Or maybe you ask them, what do you think of money when that happened because you had this really strange look on your face or really cute look or whatever? And I just said yeah, I know she's up to something I know that look it means you're thinking big thoughts I know that look after all I get it too so it just linked back to me too, which was kind of fun sometimes there's event it's where there's a lot going on this is a championship game for my son and I could talk about baseball or the season or this or that or could be a wedding or graduation new baby and you wondering what? How am I going to tell a story about this? Because there's so many threads that could be told and one thing I think about is is what that event means in a larger context to me personally because I do tend to tell my stories sometimes I'm helping my kids tell there's typically I'm talking about my experience as a mom or my experience in the world and so I was talking about with football I could have just said oh it was football season this was ben's first game of the sky in high school that added but I chose to talk about how as a mom how difficult it was seen him suit up for the first time because it's my little boy out there people are going to hit him but then I realized how tough he is and I realized how much he is growing and it was really a symbol to me, of how much he assured and how he's moving towards becoming a man, so it meant so much more than just the first day of football practice, but it takes time to think about these things on dh it's, not a lot of time, necessarily because what I find is usually the story's air there because the pictures are calling tow us for a reason we took them for a reason we printed them out for a reason they're pulling us for a reason, so if we just ask what that is, take that split second to say ok, what is it? What I love about this and start from there? It becomes really easy sometimes it's just a photo, somebody you love, you love the picture because maybe the person isn't with us anymore and this is my mom with my daughter and of course I love any photos of them together. And so how do you start? What story do you possibly tell about a person who you know you spent forty years with? And what I'll do then is just right that love letter, I'll say what what what did they mean to me and the example here and again, it's not the same photo, but it's an example of that approach is my sister and me and how much I miss her and the things that we talk about you know, whether it's kids and work moving diet whatever it might be I just made a list of all the things I talk about with her and it became just this little love letter to her saying, you know what? I love you you mean something to me and if I didn't have you I'd be missing out and again not a complicated page, not a lot of journaling, but I look at that and I feel it it's called audition together that was a scrap wiccan problem and I was given the title dish in together you think what am I going to do with that on? This is what it came too, and I love it and they should it turn she was little so anyway, so I would love to invite you to take a look through your photos. We've got a group books here you just want to flip through and grab one and pick one that grabs your heart and maybe you just want to start jotting down a few words or a few sentences about why that photo stopped you dead in your tracks as you're flipping through and don't spend too much time looking because obviously he printed these photos you took these photos so they mean something to you so just pick one that grabbed you first and start asking yourself, what is it about that photo that grabs you what do you love about that? And if you're at home doing this, you can do this as well you can go to your online gallery or excuse me, go to your flicker gallery or go to wherever you upload your photos too find a photo that you love and just write down a few sentences about why you love it and I would love to hear a little bit about that though I'm sure we're all going to have different stories here and that's going to be exciting to get to know everybody a little bit better through that process. Great now we have a question that just came up while people are kind of writing that down curious to get your opinion again we make it this get to this and later sell thanks so just let us know but this question comes from sadie girl and they say that I have wartime original letters that a friend of mine wants to scrap book I worry that they will not be preserved also if they get scrapbook they may not be able to be shared with the rest of my family now how would you suggest that I preserve these letters but still make them easily accessible so the whole family can share right? I would definitely scanned them in it's pretty easy to do pretty inexpensive there even services that will scan in old photos if you get all those boxes of photos and you want to preserve the originals and scrap of copies you can get him skin and pretty inexpensively and on dh then you khun print out as many copies as you like so I would definitely do that you can also get our we're going to talk about archival safety tomorrow just really briefly and that's giving your pictures and your page is the best chance to last the longest and their sprays that you can spray on there to help preserve it you could put it in special envelopes but also also it's going to be pretty darn safe in your scrapbook I mean there's a lot of worse places that you could put some some old letters that you want to hold onto so I would not be hesitant to keep those in my scrapbook. I probably scan them in first and either copy ah print out a copy and use that in my scrapbook or scrapbook the original and then make sure that I shared the copies with whoever might want them. And if there's enough of them you could actually create a cool photo album our excuse me, a photo book where you combine those letters with photos from that time period that would be really, really needs because when you do the digital thing and you scan things even say you are I was hit I think tracy was telling me that it's seventy percent paper he people in thirty percent digital prescribed looking around and probably right about that? Yeah, so two people isa complete numbers, the people do a little online and then printed out and then add things like like, you know, line you got a little button, right? So do you then add things to it to give it texture and then pop it into one of these books to people? Do that come back because you can't do that with the letters, right? Yeah, people dio picked there's the whole razors people who create digitally and never print out their layouts at all, they just live on their computers. Then there are people at the other end who will create a background or maybe at some text to a photo and print that out in a twelve by twelve or eight and a half by eleven format and then add on top like you're talking about. Add some elements on or the reverse where they create a paper page and then add digital elements that they print out and cut out and put onto the page too. So it's again, just what process you enjoy and just what's going to help you tell your stories what feels comfortable, what feels fun, what feels easy to you working e thing right along there zipping right along can I interrupt you guys just for sex because I want to know what photos you chose you don't have to stop writing but I would just love to hear about the photo that you chose you want to share with us and I chose this one of my son when he was about three years old I think ah and he was just having a blast on the beach just running along absolutely pure joy carefree not a care in the world I mean I look at this and I feel like I'm back on the beach with him and this is you know when he was young says before homework in school and you know years of dating and social or life beating way exactly and so every time you know I've seen this picture a couple times have come across in my locks of photos and when it came across it yesterday it just jumped right oh oh that's great and you know we're talking about now probably brings up some things that it's easy to talk that it is the right so it's like ok that's what that meant to me so often yeah if you get stuck with the writing portion share it with the friend and just say ok this picture here is this is what it means to me this is what it reminds me of this is why I took this photo how about you we have a rowing photo no way purple held there you go even better I'm a red hatter and on your birthday month you get to wear purple hair shopping with my girlfriends for a purple hat and this this one's totally ridiculous and it reminds me that I gotta go find I still haven't found ahead on my birthday she'll soon so you know that's why jim does it remind you got studio it's silly like she was saying about her son everything she said about her son carefree and how I write like me e o u two I chose a picture of me and my oldest because for a couple reasons when this was his tenth birthday and I call him my mini me oh, it is just me don't every last bit and I chose this picture not just because of that, but also because I'm really selective about the pictures that I included myself being a woman that's a terrible picture of me, but I can't seem to throw the picture away because I love just the emotional about much yeah about that about that and it shows a picture of my son at age three at the sacramento zoo they have an amazing merry go round with all sorts of different unusual animals and you know his smile says that all but I'm remembering him standing there watching maybe ten browns were struggling with which animals right important decision. And he was obsessed with kofu panda at the time. And so he chose mantis and bring a flood of memories. Oh, I love that. Isn't it funny how when you get the photo in your hand and you start thinking they can still have immediately scrapple going to just sit and think about it for a second, it all comes back. It's amazing. Angela, what did you teo? I chose this picture of my youngest son, who we found on well, on friday. He's about to be is a great promotion. Is friday. So, he's going into hiding, girl, which was like, yeah, he needs my only one left at home. So it's yeah, there's a whole lot going way. Yeah. Uh, jane, what do you have for it? You know, another thing where the stories don't need to be the important. Have a hot toddy. I never get sick. I never, ever get sick. And I will still tell you that even though a couple weeks ago I was dying and it just seemed like a good I did have a hot toddy, but I am using it, maura's. I never get sick. Oh, yeah. You never never accept going todo rare gangs when it happens.